Querétaro State, Mexico. November 10 & 11, 2021.For many birders nothing comes close to the appeal of our spring and summer warblers. By warblers I don’t mean the rather drab, look-alike warblers of the old world, I speak of our North-American, neo-tropical warblers. Around here, most years, we’ll see about one quarter of the hundred-plus warbler species from the Parulidae family. Most of the family never stray from their tropical homeland so, on my recent trip to Mexico I was happily not surprised to see several new-to-me species. After our trip, our Travelian Tours leader, Rodrigo, prepared a complete list of birds seen, it included about twenty warbler species some of which were familiar summer visitors: Black-throated Green, Wilson’s and Nashville Warblers for example. But there was more and three really caught my imagination: Crescent–chested Warbler, Golden–browed Warbler and Painted Redstart.
A picture of the Crescent-chested Warbler featured prominently on our itinerary website, it looked so impossible and so exotic that I needed to see one to believe it. I asked Rodrigo what our chances were, he nodded casually, yes, he thought we probably would. Our third morning was the payoff, we were struggling up a vague path through thick forest when one appeared right in front of us. Everyone took many photos, it seemed as interested in us as we were in it. Taking many photos doesn’t guarantee good ones though and I was disappointed with my efforts. Above is my best while a great one from Rodrigo is on the masthead.
Late the same day, we wandered down an uneven rural road into a valley. There was forest on our uphill side and farmland turning to a moist thicket on the other. It was late afternoon and birding was patchy, until we saw a little movement in the moist thicket. There was a Golden–browed Warbler, and then another until we realised we were watching a scattered group of maybe a dozen. They offered many photo ops but rarely held a position for more than a second or two so we all took many ‘oh it moved’ photos. Here, once again are a couple of Rodrigo’s photos(above and below); I’m indebted to him for his skills.
Finally – but really far from final, the Painted Redstart. We know American Redstarts in Ontario, they’re not the most colourful warbler but always worth stopping to admire. But the quite unrelated Painted Redstart is almost unbelievable in splashes of red, white and black. My first reaction was of disbelief, a bird that you would think only exists in coffee-table books. It too found us as interesting, perhaps we were intruders. Here it is, once again courtesy of Rodrigo.
Fantastic, Peter! Very jealous.